In a Fibre Channel network, Fibre Channel switches are deployed to direct traffic between host server devices and storage array devices. The Fibre Channel switches store in memory at least one Fibre Channel identifier for each device that connects to it. The Fibre Channel identifier comprises three absolute values for Domain, Area and Port. When a run-time domain changes, the corresponding Fibre Channel identifiers for that domain become invalid all at once. This causes significant frustration for a network administrator because often the Fibre Channel identifiers are configured manually. In addition, performance of the network is degraded when the Fibre Channel identifiers for devices connected to the switches are lost.